Knowledge Communities
By Maria Johnsen
Introduction
You will find within this paper, theoretical and practical aspects of
knowledge communities, their strategies, important tools and processes
that will help to integrate Knowledge Management into our organizations
current methods. Knowledge communities (KC) can be defined as:
“knowledge communities are groups of people who share common
challenges, opportunities or a passion for a given topic, and who
collaborate to deepen their understanding of that topic through ongoing
learning and knowledge sharing.”(AIA Knowledge Communities)
The theoretical aspect of Knowledge communities is based on managing
technology, and managing human beings who share their knowledge
effectively. The sharing of knowledge further depends upon information
seekers who are in need of a certain type of knowledge. So that they
can perform certain tasks with confidence and knowledge sources may
have all the required information. The theoretical aspect is
implemented in such a way so that effective knowledge sharing is
possible between knowledge seekers and the knowledge source. This facet
helps seekers and sources to be aware of their requirements and
resource.
The concept of Knowledge Communities is largely derived from what is
known as community of practice (CoP). The term was coined in 1998 by
Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger who claimed that communities of practice
are everywhere and that we are generally involved in a number of them
whether at work, school, home, or in our civic and leisure interests.
In some groups we are core members, in others we are more at the
margins. (Smith, 2003)
Towards the end of last century the idea of knowledge sharing was put
to use in corporate world and a broader form of CoP evolved which was
known as “knowledge communities”.
"The basic difference between CoP and knowledge communities is that the
scope of member participation is clearly defined by job description
(such as farmer’s community) in CoP, whereas in the case of knowledge
communities member participation is wide open and covers in some cases,
all the employees working in a big organization. "(Yamazaki, 2004)
knowledge communities was first put to practice by Xerox which was
faced with a global IT infrastructure transition project. Top managers
decided to launch a knowledge-sharing initiative which was called the
Transition Alliance. The Alliance comprised fifty IT professionals
responsible for managing 70,000 desktop workstations, nearly 1,200
servers, and networking hardware on five continents. It was observed
that the motivation for learning and developing at an individual level
seemed greater in this community structure than in other organizational
forms. This had important implications for the longer-term job
performance of the participants. (Storck and Hill, 2000) Since then
large corporations have used knowledge communities with documented
positive results.
knowledge communities Strategies
knowledge communities is based on the idea that knowledge and insight
are created and acquired when humans interact with each other and their
environment. Any strategy to implement knowledge communities therefore
must emphasize on the need for a diverse range of social interactions,
such as one-on-one conversations, information and communication
technology (ICT) tools, group discussion, research projects and
presentations. Storck and Hill (2000) identified six guiding principles
that are instrumental to the success of organizational learning. These
are stated below and are applicable to knowledge communities in a
corporate environment:
-Design an interaction format that promotes openness and allows for
serendipity.
-Build upon a common organizational culture.
-Demonstrate the existence of mutual interests after the initial
success at resolving issues and achieving corporate goals.
-Leverage those aspects of the organizational culture that respect the
value of collective learning. -Embed knowledge-sharing practices into
the work processes of the group.
-Establish an environment in which knowledge sharing is based on
processes and cultural norms that are defined by the community rather
than other parts of the organization. (Storck et. al, 2000) Apart from
these the management of both technology and context in order to provide
effective support for learning and knowledge sharing is essential.
knowledge communities Tools
In this section, the aim is to clarify which IT tools support knowledge
communities. Most of the knowledge communities today is on-line; there
is very little interest in face to face knowledge communities. The
tools generally used for knowledge communities are therefore e-mail,
groupware, e-learning systems teleconferencing etc. There are however
constraints to the usefulness of these technologies. Face-to-face
interaction can sometimes be very crucial for example in developing and
reinforcing trust relationships between team members. Most knowledge
communities have predefined Knowledge Management component
architectures which are based on knowledge portals, components, and
databases. These architectures act as tools for organizing and
classifying knowledge in a proficient manner. In Knowledge Management,
a portal is the base source from where members of a knowledge community
should start to enter, find, and access knowledge using the various KM
methods.
Most of search tools used by knowledge communities are server-based
systems which can handle the portals of different organizations. These
tools should be designed so that they follow a top-down design
approach. Due to their basic inherent complexity, these are
centralized, inflexible and slow to respond to change in the knowledge
base. If the knowledge base has to handled by an individual rather than
a community, then the approach of the design will be bottom-up, and the
complexity level of the tool will be minimum. Of course, all tools used
for the infrastructure have to be maintained so that they can provide
the required knowledge in a classified manner whenever necessary. The
knowledge communities use the knowledge assets for the applications
like product development by collaboration, automation of different
business processes and real time collaborations for online
applications. If the applications are user-centric, then the storage
cost can be decreased with the help of knowledge assets provided and
maintained by the knowledge communities. On the basis of the knowledge
base maintained by many communities, it is possible to enhance the
capabilities of the search based applications.
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools can only provide a
foundational infrastructure and environment to support learning. But
these tools alone are not sufficient to stimulate effective learning in
knowledge communities. "Technology however has a central part to play
in providing the media and infrastructure for learning in and between
knowledge communities if motivation and the learning context already
exist." (Barrett, et. al., 2004)
Discussion: knowledge communities Processes
The processes which are used in knowledge communities are the
following:
1. Creation or construction of the knowledge database. This is main
process in developing the information database, and it should be
implemented efficiently so that other processes can reuse this process
if needed.
2. Storing the knowledge so that it can be used for learning and
implementing the knowledge database. This process also deals with the
retrieval of information if data loss is evident.
3. The next process deals with the transfer of knowledge from one
category to another. There are different methods available for the
transfer and anyone of them can be chosen according to the
requirements. Transfer processes are different for various types of
users, and can occur at a range of levels.
4. One of the other important processes supported by knowledge
community is application. The knowledge base is useful only if it is
capable of providing useful information to the user.
5. The last process deals with the learning, which is useful for the
knowledge base organization. This process deals with how to learn what
is needed, and why it is required.
Knowledge communities have their utility in areas of high structure,
automation of processes and tasks, and a stable business environment.
Applications should be based on conditions that are most suitable to
the pre- specifications of the knowledge base. The structure of these
applications should be capable of making use of the knowledge
communities. The automation processes which new technologies are used
on and based on workflow can get proper backup from the knowledge
communities by other systems. Such applications use the knowledge base
generated by these communities to achieve lower costs, higher quality,
and greater market share for existing products and services. The
process of establishing knowledge communities is not straightforward.
The need for it or the context of knowledge sharing must be defined
first. Then we must focus on where to get this knowledge from, that is,
which members of the organization or community to focus on. Once the
community and the Knowledge context have been decided we need to decide
on the media. Putting knowledge communities in place is not very
difficult but maintaining and running it efficiently is, especially
when the community members are expected to have a loss of interest in
future or when there is lack of trust among users. Periodic checks and
reviews are therefore very essential to sustain any knowledge
communities.
Relation to knowledge management
knowledge communities is very much related to knowledge management.
Knowledge management is capturing, organizing, and storing knowledge
and experiences of individual workers and groups within an organization
and making this information available to others in the organization.
This is what knowledge communities does too so that we acknowledge that
knowledge communities is a very effective tool for knowledge
management.
An example of knowledge communities system
A good example of the use of knowledge communities at corporate level
is Hewlett Packard’s IT Resource Center (ITRC) which brings together
engineers, internal IT staff and customers. The community uses intranet
or extranet and is focused on specific products or issues. These
inter–organizational communities have membership running in thousands
and they cover topics such as business recovery planning and operating
systems software. Community participants can ask questions and receive
answers within a short period of time. So when systems administrators
have problems, they can post symptoms electronically on the intranet
and receive detailed help on how to proceed within minutes. For such
communities to succeed, members must have mutual trust. Hewlett Packard
deals with mistrust by using a system of user profiles and ratings.
Community members get to rate each other’s responses from 1 to 10. The
response now has a ‘credit rating’ and the query poser can easily
assess the utility of this answer. (Barrett, et. al., 2004) Such
success stories of knowledge communities abound in today’s corporate
world.
Conclusion
It’s a well established fact that people with common interest facing
similar kind of problems learn faster when in a group. The interaction
between individuals creates a knowledge base which is of utmost
importance to each member of this community. Knowledge communities are
based on this basic premise. They try to bring people together mostly
using today’s advanced ICT tools. knowledge communities has found
tremendous acceptance in the corporate world owing to their simplicity
and usefulness. ICT tools work best in creating knowledge communities
when a sufficient stimulus to learn already exists in the community.
ICT tools however have their constraints and face-to-face interaction
becomes vital sometimes. For a knowledge communities to succeed there
must be a learning context, sufficient members to contribute knowledge,
a media and mutual trust among members. If such requirements exist,
knowledge communities can become an indispensable tool for any
organization or community.
The knowledge communities help organizations to identify their
knowledge priorities, so that these organizations can upgrade their
tools to be more user-friendly in handling the knowledge platform. It
helps the organization to develop more appropriate, meaningful, and
useful knowledge management bases.
References
Knowledge communities, The American Institute of Architects,
Michael Barrett, Sam Cappleman, Gamila Shoib and Geoff Walsham. (2004)
Learning in Knowledge Communities: Managing Technology and Context.
European Management ,Journal Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 1–11, 2004
Smith, M. K. (2003) 'Communities of practice', the encyclopedia of
informal education
Storck, J. and Hill, P.A. (2000) Knowledge diffusion through ‘strategic
communities’.Sloan Management Review 41(2), 63–74.
Wenger, E. (1998) 'Communities of Practice. Learning as a social
system', Systems Thinker, located at
Yamazaki, Hideo. Knowledge Communities in Japan-A case study, located at
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